PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is an open-source HTML-embedded server-side scripting language which is used to develop dynamic and interactive web applications and also used as a general-purpose programming language.

Some Facts About PHP

PHP was developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995, and later it has been developed as open source. The PHP Group now manages the implementation of PHP.

Many syntaxes of PHP is similar to C, Java, and Perl, and has many unique features and specific functions.

PHP page is a file with a .php extension that contains could be the combination of HTML Tags and PHP scripts.

PHP recursive acronym for PHP(Hypertext Preprocessor): HyperText means, text containing all sorts of web markups, PreProcessor means all of the HyperText is processed first and then the result is sent as pure HTML to the web browser. A client cannot see the PHP source code because it is preprocessed and interpreted.

PHP is Server-side scripting language: Server-side scripting means that the PHP code is processed on the web server rather than the client machine.

What You Can Do with PHP

PHP is used to create web applications, and some of the most popular web applications like Facebook, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Twitter, WordPress all has been developed in PHP, and you can also develop next big thing by using PHP.

PHP Why? Popular Features of PHP

The best things about using PHP is extremely easy for a newcomer, and also it has many advanced features for a professional programmer.

Coding in PHP is easy and fast, so it takes less time to build an application.

Many good PHP frameworks like Zend, Codeigniter, and Laravel are available in PHP.

Many web hosting options are available at the fair price with PHP.

With PHP code deployment is very easy.

Substantial PHP community support, and many tutorials and sample programs are available online.

PHP vs. Other Technologies

Many developers working in other technologies which are also interested in working in PHP, for example, JSP, ASP, Perl, ColdFusion are the name of few. Usually, it's a matter of preference and the cost involved that urges developers to pick PHP one over the other. Maybe different opinions about it, but most of PHP developers believe that PHP is easier to learn and has a superior syntax than other languages. Additionally PHP is fast and safe, and on top of all, it's free.